Manning's legacy game

CHICAGO – For all the fun Peyton Manning had slaying demons and living dreams in Indianapolis on Sunday, the cold reality will come into focus as the celebratory hangover clears.

If he doesn't win the Super Bowl now, if he doesn't best the stumbling, inconsistent Rex Grossman in the big game, then all the positives of vanquishing the New England Patriots and Tom Brady will be lost.

It is one thing to be tormented by a Brady, or even a Ben Roethlisberger. But Rex Grossman? The Chicago Bears quarterback who throws off his back foot, is capable of single-digit quarterback ratings (he had two this season) and has teammates focusing on positives such as, "at least he didn't blow it for us"?

Manning is headed to the Hall of Fame, just hung 32 second-half points on the New England Patriots, the AFC's second-best scoring defense, and in his first Super Bowl matches up against a quarterback whose team keeps winning in spite of him.

And while Manning and Grossman will never be on the field at the same time and the Bears' vicious defense is Manning's chief concern – "that was not a great feeling, seeing how good that defense is," Manning said – the quarterback position is the most influential and rarely has there been such a disparity heading into a Super Bowl.

Manning has no choice now. It's win on Feb. 4 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., or be haunted by the fact that Rex Grossman somehow got the better of him.

Grossman will be the Bears' focal point for the next 13 days, a giant question mark only he can answer. Is he the "Good Rex" who torched the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for 339 yards and two TDs in mid-December? Or is he the "Bad Rex" who put up horrific QB rating performances against the Patriots (23.1), Arizona Cardinals (10.2), Minnesota Vikings (1.3) and Green Bay Packers (0.0)?

In beating the New Orleans Saints 39-14 here Sunday, he was both, although mostly bad. Grossman went 11 of 26 for 144 yards and one touchdown pass (73.2 rating), but almost all of his production came on a single drive – a 4-for-4, 78-yard second-half effort that put the game away. Minus that drive, Grossman went 7 of 22 for 66 yards.

Poor weather and a couple dropped passes are reasonable excuses, but only to a point. If Grossman was good, the game would have been over in the second quarter.

"I was a tad hesitant," he said, in more than a tad of an understatement. "It doesn't matter, because we won, but that's what caused me to throw some balls not as accurate as I wanted to."

On the positive side, he didn't make any back-breaking mistakes, like a pick six (which Manning had against the Patriots). "I just gotta keep making good decisions and being careful with the football," he said.

But is that really enough to win a Super Bowl? Is that a suitable plan to match offense with the high-voltage Indianapolis Colts? Can the Bears really bank on having their defense bail them out?

Grossman will enter the Super Bowl as perhaps the most questioned quarterback ever. Even Trent Dilfer, Jeff Hostetler and, in 2002, then first year starter Tom Brady had shown more consistency than Rex.

Even his team's confidence in him sounds rather uninspiring, if well meaning. "He hasn't had two bad back-to-back games all season long," offered Brian Urlacher as why he thought Grossman would rebound on Sunday.

"There will be some highs and some lows (with Rex)," Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "You just have to work through them."

They point to their 15-3 record as proof that it is. "He's a winner," Urlacher said. "I don't care what his stats are, he's a winner."

So, too, is Manning now. But only if he finishes it out. This is his legacy game. As great as beating the Patriots was, it loses all value with a single loss.

What the Colts are experiencing is similar to the 2004 Boston Red Sox finally getting past the tormenting New York Yankees in dramatic fashion in the American League Championship Series. If they had blown the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals (Boston swept) nothing would have changed. All that curse talk would have remained.

The son of a NFL legend, Manning was bred for this going back to his childhood in New Orleans, through a high-profile career at the University of Tennessee and now nine record-setting seasons with the Colts.

But he has never won the truly big one – although Sunday's 38-34 victory in the AFC championship game ought to count. He didn't win a state title in high school, a national title in college and until Sunday, hadn't led some excellent Colts teams to the Super Bowl.

Sunday over the Patriots was supposed to be a legacy victory for Manning, even if he doesn't want to admit it. "I don't get into monkeys and vindication," he said. "I don't play that card."

In truth, we don't know what the AFC championship will mean yet. It can be everything. The victory can even overshadow the Super Bowl, the way the Red Sox's comeback over the Yankees in 2004 is bigger historically than their World Series triumph.

Or it can be just a footnote to the ultimate collapse.

Yes, those Bears are ruthless defensively and Urlacher and company are eager to be so dominant that Grossman doesn't have to do much. But the fact remains, heading into the most important game, the Colts have a significant advantage at the most significant position on the field.

And if Rex Grossman has a Super Bowl ring in a couple weeks and Peyton Manning doesn't, then Manning is going to spend a long, long time wondering how.